FAC Related: Brown Eyes
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Perisa Halliwell, Phoebe's fourteen year old daughter from New York, contemplates life and why her mother gave her up as she moves across the country in the hopes of finally meeting the woman who abandon her all those years ago.


A/N: This is a brand new type of songfic for me. It's centered around my own original character by the name of Persia Patty Halliwell. She was the result of a sexual assault on Phoebe in New York, where she was born. In my AU series, _Four's A Charm_, she shows up at the Manor's front door when she's fourteen and the rest is, as they say, history. But I've never delved much into her history in New York, which is actually something I've been planning to do for a while. But when I heard Kellie Pickler's _I Wonder_ on the radio the other day, it was so much like Persia that I knew I had to write this. (P.S. In my series, Persia is "played" by Katie Holmes, in case you'd like to visualize a young Katie as you read this.)

_**Brown Eyes**_

She swiped a strand of golden brown hair from her eye, tucking it gently behind her ear. Her arm moved to rest on a dusty white windowsill. In her hand, a old photograph, yellowed and bent with age, was held tightly between her fingers. Turning it in her hand, the back of the photo read 'Phoebe Halliwell.'

Persia Halliwell turned her head to stare out the window. Rain drizzled heavily down the glass and all she could see were blotches of color. It reminded her of one of the water color pictures she'd made as a child, and as she'd gone to clean up, her hand had hit her cup of water and it had fallen on the picture, blurring all of the colors together. Her lips pursed at the memory. The picture she'd drawn had been of California, where she had been told that her real mother lived.

"California." Perisa's eyes shifted to the photograph in her hands. The woman they claimed was her birth mother looked so young. Dark, shoulder length brown hair, a beaming smile with full red lips, the perfect California tan, and deep brown eyes.

Persia stood up and trekked along the thin brown carpet in her hotel room. She moved to a tiny room and flicked on the light switch, revealing a dingy white bathroom and a mirror with red and black graffiti. She lifted her head as she moved to the sink, staring at her own reflection and then back down at the picture.

The brown eyes haunted her. They were ever so slightly different than her mother's, with small golden flecks, but other than that, they were all Phoebe. "The only thing you ever gave me," she said quietly. She pressed her stomach against the ridge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror, examining her facial features. A small circle of breath began to form in front of her lips. Angrily, she slapped her hand over her reflection and turned away.

**Sometimes I think about you**

**Wonder if you're out there somewhere thinkin' 'bout me**

**And would you even recognize this woman that your little girl has grown up to be**

'**Cause I look in the mirror and all I see are your brown eyes lookin' back at me**

**They're the only thing you ever gave to me**

She slipped open the wooden drawer next to her bed and dropped her biological mother's picture into it. Closing her eyes, she leaned back into the pillows on the hotel bed and sat with her hands clasped across her stomach for several minutes.

Every time she looked at that picture, her emotions overwhelmed her. She'd been born in New York City, New York, a full twelve hours from where she sat right now, in Charleston, South Carolina. Somehow she'd managed to take the wrong bus at one of the stops and end up several states out of her way. She'd been stuck in South Carolina for over a month now, working odd jobs and living out of a hotel until she could earn enough money to buy her next bus ticket.

It wasn't easy, of course, because she was only a fourteen-year-old, alone in a huge world. She could pass for fifteen, and sometimes even sixteen if she told people that she looked young for her age. Her biggest challenge to date had been escaping the orphanage her mother had left her in.

Persia looked down at her fingertips. Yellow sparks ignited and she watched them flicker against her nails, entranced. She could make electricity from her hands. Whatever it was, an ability or a mutation she guessed, might have something to do with her birth parents. She cocked her head to the side, curious. "Maybe it's the reason she gave me away," she murmured quietly. "Maybe she didn't understand why I was such a freak."

It was almost ironic, though. The very thing that she may have been given away for was the one thing that had helped her to successfully get where she was now. She used her abilities to manipulate things, particularly electrical things, like the computers at her orphanage. She had successfully logged into the administrative functions and booked herself a bus ticket and false adoption records for San Francisco, California.

The young teenager reached her hand across the pillow to grab the remote control for the television. She clicked 'Power' and flicked through the channels until she came to the weather channel. Several minutes passed as they reported the wet conditions for her area, South Carolina, and then moments later a panning view of the Golden Gate Bridge appeared on the screen. It was beautiful, sunny as far as the eye could see.

"It's a beautiful day in San Francisco today," the weatherman reported in a far too cheery tone.

A bitter laugh escaped Persia Halliwell's mouth. Nearly forty-two hours away, her mother's life was perfect.

**Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California**

**There's sunny skies as far as I can see**

**If you ever come back home to Carolina**

**I wonder what you'd say to me**

Perisa's eyes lifted to the white ceiling. "I wonder if you ever think of me," she said quietly. Her mouth twisted slightly, she wanted to be angry and on some level, she was. But obviously, she knew, if she was as angry as she wanted to be, she wouldn't be traveling the length of the continental United States just to meet a woman who abandon her fourteen years earlier.

"You know," she said as she pointed her finger to the television, just as the California landscape disappeared and was replaced with the weatherman, "I wonder what if would've been like to grow up with you. You…" Persia's head dropped to her chest and she lightly picked at the strands of her golden brown hair. "You messed everything up for me."

She yanked open the wooden drawer again and stared at the smiling face looking back at her. "You should have been there when I fell off my bike and twisted my wrist when I was five." She grabbed the picture from the drawer and waved it, wanting so badly to shake the real person instead. "You should've been there the first time I watched 'The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking' and wanted to braid my hair just like hers!" She bit her lower lip, mocking herself for using that particular movie. "I guess there was a reason I was drawn to that one, huh Ma?"

Persia's eyes bore into the picture. "You should've been there for the first formal dance in sixth grade, when Jack Rollins asked me out. You should've helped me pick out the dress I wanted to wear and tell me how much lipstick to put on and how to do my hair." Her eyes began to water. "And in two years, you should be there for my Junior Prom."

The brunette swiped the sleeve of her blue and white checkered shirt across her cheek, wiping away her fallen tears. "I think about you all the time," she choked, "do you ever wonder about me too? Do you even care?"

**I think about how it ain't fair that you weren't there to braid my hair like mothers do**

**You weren't around to cheer me on**

**Help me dress for my high school prom like mothers do**

**Did you think that I didn't need you here to hold my hand, to dry my tears**

**Did you even miss me through the years at all?**

The phone rang loud in her ears, prompting her to wake up with a jolt. She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she sat up. Her face felt tight, obviously from the dried tears that she had cried the night before. She'd fallen asleep like that, with the weather channel on and her mother's picture clamped tightly to her chest.

The phone rang again and this time she picked the receiver up and placed it to her ear. "Hello?"

"This is the front desk. It's your nine A.M. wake up call, Miss Hollowell."

Persia snorted as they pronounced her last name wrong. "Halliwell."

"Excuse me?"

"Halliwell," the teenager snapped again. "It's Halliwell, not Hollowell."

"I ap-"

Persia slammed the phone down. That was the last time they'd pronounced her last name wrong. In the month that she'd stayed there, they hadn't gotten it right once. _Well_, she thought with a sneer, _I won't put up with it anymore._ She threw her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed a plastic bag that was sitting on the floor. She shoved the picture of her mother into the bag. They were all the possessions she had left, as her suitcase had disappeared with the bus when she mistakenly took the wrong route a month before.

The teenager slipped into the bathroom and pulled her brown hair into a short, haphazard ponytail. Just chopped half of it off just a week ago, and now it was just a little longer than shoulder length. For some reason, one which she regretted now, she'd been attempting to style it similar to the picture that she so carefully guarded.

Shaking her head at her own disappointment, she turned on the cold water and splashed some onto her face. "You just keep screwing up, don't you?" She eyed her reflection with venomous eyes. And for a moment, she wasn't sure if she was talking to herself or the woman she saw within her own eyes. She quickly turned off the water and walked out. She didn't have time to contemplate it right now, otherwise she'd be late again.

Her golden flecked, brown eyes flitted to the open window. She noticed that the blacktop outside was still a dark black, obviously wet, but the gushing rain must have stopped sometime during the night.

"And it's another gorgeous day in sunny California!"

Persia whipped her head around as the same weatherman from the night before began to spout of what a nice vacation spot California was. "Of course it is," she breathed.

**Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California**

**There's sunny skies as far as I can see**

**If you ever come back home to Carolina**

**I wonder what you'd say to me**

Perisa Patty Halliwell stood in the middle of a South Carolina bus depot. She closed her eyes, almost wishing she'd never left all she knew in New York. _But_, a voice in the back of her head reminded her, _all of your answers lie in California._ She opened her eyes again and clutched her plastic bag close to her side.

Several cautious steps later, she found herself at the bus station window. "I'm here to pick up my ticket."

The woman frowned as she stared at the young girl. "How old are you?"

"S-sixteen," she stuttered. "I'm small for my age."

The old woman pulled her large, red rimmed glasses to the bridge of her nose and inspected the teenager from head to toe. "How did you get a ticket?"

"My mom bought if for me online," the brunette lied. "I'm going to see her…" She reached into her pocket and pulled out the worn photograph. "See?" As the gray haired woman reached for the picture, Persia snatched it back. "It should be under Halliwell." She heart was racing. "Persia Halliwell?"

"Persia Halliwell," the old woman said with a snort. She clicked her fingers against the keyboard and nodded grimly, still unsure of how someone so young could be riding alone. A few clicks later, she handed the teen a printed ticket.

"Thank you," she said hurriedly.

"Be careful," the old woman warned, still untrusting of the girl's story. "You never know what's out there."

Looking down at her sparking fingers as she turned away from the teller, she shook her head. "You have no idea."

**Forgiveness is such a simple word**

**But it's so hard to do**

**When you've been hurt**

The teenager seated herself quietly at the back of the Greyhound Bus. Her stomach was churning and her heart pounding like a jackhammer. Her palms were clammy and a few beads of sweat was causing her brown hair to stick to her face.

"This is it," she told herself. "Don't screw it up this time." She slipped her photograph from her pocket and stared at Phoebe's face one more time. In a few days she'd be in San Francisco, the place she'd been told that her biological mother was born and raised. Providing she didn't slip up again, or back down at the last minute, she'd come face to face with the woman who gave her up fourteen years ago.

"And I'll finally be able to ask you why." Her hand shook as the words left her mouth. "There are so many things I want to know," she murmured just loud enough for herself to hear. "But above them all…Why?"

Persia turned her head to the tinted window and leaned her hot face to the cool glass. She could see several people outside, some waving and some crying as they said goodbye to their friends and family members. Her heart gave a little twinge. She wished she had someone to cry for her.

The young Halliwell pulled her ticket from her pocket. 'Leave: Charleston, South Carolina.' As she moved her eyes down one line it then read, 'Arrive: Nashville, Tennessee.' She bit her lower lip. She knew that she'd be changing buses several more times between now and San Francisco.

"Tennessee," she said to herself. "Well, at least I'm a fan of country music." She tapped the ticket with her index finger, which was painted in chipping black polish. "I guess taking the long way there isn't so bad…"

**Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California**

**And just in case you're wonderin' about me**

**From now on I won't be in Carolina**

**Your little girl is off, your little girl is off, your little girl is off**

**To Tennessee**

"I hope you're ready," she said as she looked down at Phoebe Halliwell's picture, "because I'm coming home."


End file.
